The United States is within a week or two of quite visibly committing
a crime so much larger as to obliterate the world's memory of September
11 (from item 3)

At a time when globalisation and trade liberalisation forced by WTO
and the World Bank are pushing thousands of people to starvation and thousands
of farmers to suicide, the WTO draft texts are committed to continue the
genocide... WTO rules are not just about global trade. They determine whether
millions will live or die. (from item 5)

Disparate items or a single strand?
1. Food First's daily updates from Doha
2. Veneman pushes biotech/excerpt from Veneman's speech
3. US-led genocide will obliterate Sept. 11
4. WTO out of Food and Agriculture
5. 'India will be bulldozed during the WTO talks'

***

1. Food First's daily updates from Doha

from <amittal@foodfirst.org>

Food First will provide daily updates from Doha, voicing opposition
of the small family farmers and working poor around the world to the economic
policies of the WTO.

General Information on the WTO meeting in Doha:
http://www.foodfirst.org/progs/global/trade/wto2001

Calendar of Action Events in the US and Worldwide:
http://www.foodfirst.org/progs/global/trade/wto2001/events.html

***

2. Veneman pushes biotech/excerpt from Veneman's speech

United Press International November 6, 2001

U.S. urges biotechnology as part of cure for world hunger [shortened]

Further development of biotechnology is an important means of fighting
world hunger and poverty, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Monday.
Veneman told those attending the U.N. food conference in Rome the United
States remains committed to helping end malnutrition and poverty. Biotechnology
is a means of ending those problems, even though some nations of the world
object because of uncertainties about how stable such food products are.

Excerpt from Veneman's speech:

A new round of trade liberalization talks, which we hope to launch next
week in Doha, will help to put all countries on an equal footing with respect
to food security.

As we have in years past, the United States is taking an active role
in Afghanistan by providing humanitarian relief to the many people fleeing
the suppression and impoverished economy of the Taliban regime. President
Bush has made it extremely clear that the United States is not at war with
the people of Afghanistan. We are one of the largest providers of food
aid to that region. We are at war with those who harbor and support terrorism.
And we must continue to provide strong leadership to these regions and
provide humanitarian assistance to those people who are suffering.

***

3. US-led genocide will obliterate Sept. 11

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1106-10.htm

Does anybody understand what the United States is on the verge of
doing?

Geov Parrish

Experienced, respected food aid organizations warn that even before
the bombing of Afghanistan began on October 7, some 7,500,000 Afghans were
-- through a gut-wrenching combination of poverty, drought, war, dislocation,
and repression --
http://www.observer.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1501,577996,00.html
at risk of starving to death this winter. When the bombing began, almost
all delivery of food from the outside world stopped. Now, roads and bridges
are destroyed, millions more people are dislocated, and the snow is steadily
approaching from higher elevations and from the north.

For weeks, aid organizations, along with voices from throughout the
region, have been begging the United States to call off its bombing campaign,
at least for long enough so that aid agencies can conduct the massive transfer
of food into and throughout Afghanistan that is necessary to prevent death
on a scale the world has not seen in a long, long time.

Seven and a half million people at risk of dying in a matter of months.
That's three times the number of people Pol Pot took years to kill. Thirty-five
times the number that died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined. If 5,000
died on September 11, we're talking the equivalent number of deaths to
ten World Trade Centers, every day, for 150 days. Slow, painful deaths.
Entirely avoidable deaths. Deaths whose sole cause is not the United States,
but most of which can still be prevented -- except that the United States
is refusing to allow them to be prevented.

It repulses me to say this, but I suspect a lot of Americans don't care.
They'd rather see the United States "get" Osama bin Laden (though there's
no actual evidence that we're any closer to that today than we were two
months ago, and probably the task is harder as he becomes more popular
and protected).

An apocalypse of this scale is simply unimaginable to most of us: no
food, in a country with no roads left, no vehicles, displaced people, lost
relatives, where the winters are too cold to walk or ride a donkey even
to an adjoining village where there might be food. It's a long way from
driving to the nearest Safeway or drive-thru lane when you're hungry. But
a lot of people in this country do not care that a staggering number of
innocent people are on the verge of being condemned to death, or that most
of the world will blame the United States, correctly.

We should care. If the object of this war was to thwart terrorism --
to bring existing terrorists to justice, and to isolate them politically
and culturally so that others won't throw in their lot -- in less than
a month, the United States already has perpetrated one of the most abject
failures in military history.

It still does not know where any of Al-Qaeda's leadership even is. It
is on the verge of succeeding in its goal of creating a unified Afghanistan
government -- unfortunately, Afghans are uniting behind the Taliban, as
warlord after warlord sets aside long-standing differences to stand shoulder
to shoulder to fight the American invaders. Tens of thousands more young
Muslim men are lining up to cross the borders into Afghanistan to join
them. The ones that survive the experience will carry a lifetime of hate:
living, breathing proof that within a month, America bombed a country but
lost its war in spectacular fashion.

That's today. What will happen if millions of Afghans die this winter?
How much future terrorism will the dunderheads of the Bush Administration
have inspired then? If several million Islamic sisters and brothers starve
to death, innocent civilians trapped between winter and the rage of America,
how many of Islam's 1.2 billion adherents -- or the five billion other
people on earth -- are going to take George Bush's proclamations about
eradicating "terrorists" and "evildoers" to heart, and label him, and us,
as the prime examples?

In less than two months, the United States government has gone from
the moral high ground of being victimized by one of the most heinous crimes
in world history, to being within a week or two of quite visibly committing
a crime so much larger as to obliterate the world's memory of September
11.

Remarkably, almost nobody in the United States seems to have either
noticed, understood, or cared. While even progressives wring their
hands over the ambiguity of a war fought under the auspices of America's
legitimate right to defend itself, a situation is unfolding in which there
is absolutely no moral ambiguity at all, and for which many people will
want to hold each of us as accountable as the world held post-war Germans.
Where were you? What did you say? How could you allow this to happen? Or,
a more likely reaction in the Islamic world: Why should millions of you
not die as well? America will have set out to isolate one man, and instead
killed millions and isolated itself. And much of the world will not rest
until we are brought to our knees.

Seven and a half million people. The snowline is creeping down the mountainsides.
The food is almost gone. The infrastructure is in shambles.

There will be no "independent verification" of the body count. There
wasn't in the Holocaust or Rwanda or Cambodia, either. The judgment of
the world did not need one. The clock is ticking. Where were you?

Geov Parrish is a Seattle-based columnist and reporter for Seattle Weekly,
In These Times and Eat the State! He writes the weekdaily Straight Shot
for Working For Change.

Today an international coalition of NGOs and movements from the North
and the South launch a new campaign. The undersigned are demanding that
governments remove agriculture and food from the WTO and establish an alternative
international framework for the sustainable production and trade in food
and agriculture. The organisations are also calling for a cessation of
any further trade liberalisation negotiations in the WTO and for a review
of existing trade rules and agreements.

The organisations hope to gain broad support for this proposal and ask
other organisations to sign up to the proposal and put it forward to national
governments and the international institutions.

The undersigned organisations are part of the coalition "Our world is
not for sale: WTO sink or shrink" and have developed a specific proposal
concerning agriculture and trade defining the concept of peoples‚ food
sovereignty - the right of peoples to define their own agriculture and
food policies.

Peoples' food sovereignty is a call to governments to adopt policies
that promote sustainable, family-farm based production rather than industry-led,
high-input and export oriented production. This entails adequate prices
for all farmers, supply- management, abolishment of all forms of export
support, and the regulation of imports to protect domestic food production.
All food products should comply with high environmental, social and
health quality standards. This includes a ban on GMOs and food irradiation.
Peoples' food sovereignty also includes equitable access to land, seeds,
water and other productive resources as well as a prohibition on
patenting of life.

The WTO has shown again more in the run up to the Doha-ministerial meeting
that it is an entirely inappropriate institution to address issues of agriculture
and food. The undersigned do not believe, and this has been confirmed by
the undemocratic character of preparations leading up to the Doha Ministerial,
that the WTO will engage in profound reform.

We affirm the demands made in other civil society statements such as
Our World is Not for Sale: WTO-Shrink or Sink, and Stop the GATS
Attack Now. We urge governments to immediately take the following
steps:

1. Cease negotiations to initiate a new round of trade liberalisation
and halt discussions to bring 'new issues' into the WTO.
2. Initiate measures to remove food and agriculture from under the
control of the WTO through the dismantling of the AoA, and through the
removal or amendment of relevant clauses in other WTO agreements.
3. Initiate discussions on an alternative international framework on
the sustainable production and trade of food and agricultural goods. This
alternative framework should include:

** A reformed and strengthened United Nations (UN), which is committed
to protecting the fundamental rights of all peoples, and being the appropriate
forum to develop and negotiate rules for sustainable production and fair
trade;
** An independent dispute settlement mechanism integrated within an
international Court of Justice, especially to prevent dumping.
** A World Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Sovereignty
should be established. One of the first tasks of the Commission would be
a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of trade liberalisation on food
sovereignty and security, and develop proposals for change;
** An international, legally binding Treaty that defines the rights
of peasants and small producers to the assets, resources and legal protections
they need to be able to exercise their right to produce; such a treaty
could be framed within the UN Human Rights framework, and linked to already
existing relevant UN conventions.
** An International Convention that replaces the current Agreement
on Agriculture (AoA) and relevant clauses from other WTO agreements. The
Convention would implement within an international policy framework, the
concept of food sovereignty and the basic human rights of all peoples to
safe and healthy food, decent and full rural employment, labour rights
and protection, and a healthy, rich and diverse natural environment and
incorporate rules on the production and trade of food and agriculture commodities.

These proposals are a clear sign of the determination that unites social
movements and other civil society actors world-wide in their struggle to
democratise international policies, and to work towards institutions that
are capable of embracing and defending sustainable approaches to food and
agriculture.

We call upon all organisations and movements to sign on to the statement
and to send this proposal to their national governments. You can surf to
www.peoplesfoodsovereignty.org
for the full text of the statement "Priority to Peoples' Food
Sovereignty - WTO out of Food and Agriculture". Here your organisation
also can sign up to the statement.

After Union Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran threatened
to walk out of the World Trade Organisation, in view of the draft ministerial
declaration that included "new issues" for the Doha round of negotiations,
India's leading anti-globalisation activist, Dr Vandana Shiva, said:

"Maran is now talking tough on WTO because of the 'political orthopaedic
surgery' being performed on the government by movements like ours."

Diagnosing the Centre's strategy on WTO as a case of "severe spinelessness",
Dr Shiva says the Doha debate would only result in the developing world
being arm-twisted to sign on dotted lines thanks to hardselling of America's
Black Tuesday.

Excerpts from an interview:

What role is India going to play at the multilateral trade talks in
Doha?

India will be bulldozed during the talks and pushed into the new round.

The trouble with this government, like all other governments, is that
it feels it's still ruling the nation on behalf of the British. There is
no transparency on the government's part to tell people about the strategy
(or the lack of it) being adopted at Doha. I do not understand what is
so secretive about how India would tackle the pressure at the negotiating
table. After all, people's mandate counts in developing an overall strategy.

Where is WTO 2001 headed?

At Doha, the debate will be reduced to Robert Zoellick, Pascal Lamy
and the WTO secretariat arm-twisting developing economies to sign on dotted
lines by hardselling America's Black Tuesday tragedy. The total negotiations
will see the United States and the European Union offering the usual 'carrot
and stick' treatment to the developing world. The first instance of the
'carrot phenomenon' comes in the form of the World Bank calling for a 'new
development' round at Doha. The 'stick effect' will soon follow with the
glamorously positioned 'barrier-free trade', so that low-income nations
pay through their noses to be a part of the new trade order.

The government denies that any sympathy wave will work in the US' interest.
It says, international trade is a matter of grave concern to all nations
and no psychological trap can work. The WTO is a platform of doublespeak,
so the government is fully aware of the impending dangers that loom large.
The body is today a dictatorship system and at this round, global terrorism
will hijack key economic issues. Why is terrorism growing? Because you
shut down all options of choice for the poor and kill an economic democracy.

The World Bank has advocated the phased implementation of Trade-related
Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) by developing nations. How does India
stand to gain from this?

Trips was presented as a passport to generic drugs by the World Bank
and WTO. An immediate review of Trips is required. The picture is much
clearer now... today, the US is paranoid about Anthrax and therefore, it
wants to look for a cure in the bio-reserves of the developing world. India
stands to lose from this.

Firstly, because by putting a cap on bio-piracy, they are assuring that
you have no right over your indigenous medicines. Bio-piracy is criminal,
but for God's sake, do not glamourise it under Trips. Secondly, your bio-safety
is under serious threat and additionally you make $20 billion in technology-related
payments and also foot the expenses for local enforcement. Today, you buy
genetically-modified crop from a multinational and then when you realise
the crop is causing cancer in your fields, you burn them.

In the built-in review of Trips in the WTO, what have developing nations
called for?

In the built-in review of Trips in the WTO, people and governments have
been calling for reform of trips to stop bio-piracy, to exclude the patenting
of life forms, or to ensure that nations can use measures such as compulsory
licencing to ensure availability and access to affordable medicines and
seeds.

Instead of reforming Trips to protect the rights of people, the draft
decision on implementation is pushing for the implementation of the Trips
agreement. India has also been negotiating for an enlargement of the geographical
indicators, beyond wines and spirits, to cover products like Darjeeling
tea and Basmati rice. However, the draft ministerial declaration has the
predictable reference to an agreement to 'examine' and not 'negotiate'.

As regards agriculture, how does India present its case to the trade
forum? India needs to go to WTO as the world's biggest agro economy, not
as a beggar nation. Our bottomline should be food security, interest of
small scale farmers and bringing back quantitative restrictions on agro-imports.

What happened to India's suggestion of a food security box in the review
of the agreement on agriculture?

During the review of the agreement on agriculture, India and other developing
economies had asked for a food security box. Instead of making a commitment
in trade rules to uphold policies and measures for food and livelihood
security, the draft merely has the General Council urging members to exercise
restraint in challenging measures notified under the green box by developing
nations to promote rural development and adequately address food security
concerns. At a time when globalisation and trade liberalisation forced
by WTO and the World Bank are pushing thousands of people to starvation
and thousands of farmers to suicide, the WTO draft texts are committed
to continue the genocide.

You are going to Doha. What's the protest build-up line?

They have not allowed protests and demonstrations yet. After WTO failed
in Seattle they moved it to Doha to shut out the noise so it is not our
place for action. We'll be there to see what happens and act accordingly.

At Doha, we will witness whether democracy wins or loses. If democracy
wins, the call from people worldwide to assess the impact of WTO and reform
trade rules to ensure they do not violate people's rights to food, health
and livelihoods will be heeded. If democracy fails, domestic economies
and societies will disintegrate and survival itself will be threatened.
WTO rules are not just about global trade. They determine whether millions
will live or die.